micros

A strange thing has happened here. Of all of the interesting social movements going on in Bolivia, Santa Cruz has not exactly been at the forefront of any of them. But last week, we experienced a bit of a peoples’ uprising here in our neighborhood. It started when micro bus drivers decided to try once again to raise the price of riding the micro (one of several attempts in the past few months) from 1.5bs to 2bs (about .20 to .28).
On Tuesday Chris and I went out to the bus stop and found one of our friends Julia waiting there as well. We watched as a bus approaching us turned around in the middle of the street and let everyone off. I just figured it was a mecanical problem with the micro, but since Julia has a TV and we don’t, she knew better. She had seen on the news that they were going to try to raise the price. So we waited a few minutes while everyone from further down the road came walking up to the final stop of the buses. We then saw a micro going down a different street and circling around further down the road. The tactic, we believed, was not to pick up a crowd of people all at once. We decided to try a different micro line and as we walked away, we met up with a 53 (the line we had been waiting for) on a side street. I tried flagging it down and the driver yelled “where are you going? To the center? It’s 2bs per person. If you want to pay that, get in, if not, let me go.” Chris and I both looked at Julia, who just scoffed and kept walking. “They’ll never win.” Julia told us as we walked away. “ Everyone knows a micro driver is still making money on us all.”
(I suppose I have failed you all for not having written about micros before, because, even on a normal day, it’s never a dull experience. There are seats for about 20 and during peak hours (6-8am and 6-8pm) it’s nothing to have 50 people sitting, standing, plastered to the windows and each other, just trying to get to work. The general rule is that mothers with babies, very pregnant women and old ladies are supposed to get seats, but there’s a bit of a reputation for young men (who are commuting to and from 12 hour work days in most cases) to not be so courteous. There is also a rule that kids who don’t pay the full fair shouldn’t occupy a seat if a full-fare payer is standing up..again, they tend to hide in the back and wait for someone to call them out. Anyway, some of my favorite stories come from micro riding experiences).
Some drivers own their own micros, while other rent them. Apparently you have to pay between $100-$300 US to get into an associacion of drivers and once you’re in, you pay dues. According to Julia, her friend owns a micro and the man who rents it even after rent and all the other costs, can still make between 200 and 400bs a day ($27-54 US). The upper end being about a month’s wage for a maid. There is plenty of justification for a micro driver earning so much. There are plenty of risks involved, penalties to be paid if you’re late, and LONG days (sometimes up to 14 hrs), but you can understand how people are refusing to pay more money. Chris and I find ourselves a bit in the middle. We could easily pay the higher fare. If Julia weren’t with us, it’s hard to say what we would’ve done. But for now, it makes the most sense to support our friends whose economy is already too tightly stretched.